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I think I’m going to make a go at reviving Unspun?. Sure, I already post my opinions — privately, ually — on my Facebook account. But I find myself sometimes longing for the ability to write commentary that doesn’t fit in so easily with the short bursts of conversation on Facebook, and I miss the days of blogging my opinions, and having people come here to tell me how stupid I am.

And that seems like a nice segue into the topic of today’s post, “Facebook Arguments, or, Why Americans Can’t Compromise.”

My part of the world — the United States — seems to me to be in some kind of downward spiral and I don’t know what to do about it. Does it make sense to try to write and make some sense of it that way, and perhaps persuade a few other people that something needs to be done, or we’re doomed?

Are we, in fact, doomed? Or is this jt the same old story that’s been going around for as long as there have been human beings disagreeing on how things should be done?[Read more →]

My “day job” (now there’s a laugh!) is that I’m a criminal defense attorney.? This morning while in court, I received a phone call from the family of one of my clients, who was supposed to be there with me in court.? He wasn’t coming.

Now I’ve represented this kid off and on for some time now.? I know that he does not like to be in ctody.? Hates it.

All he had to do today was show up and likely as not that would have been the end of it.? No ctody.

As I read the news concerning the greatest oil disaster in the history of the United States (of the world?), I cannot help but wonder if British Petroleum has guaranteed the next major extinction.

No doubt some of you will write me off for that comment and move on, thinking what I have to say cannot possibly be relevant to your life, or to anyone’s real life, for that matter.? Obvioly, I’m some kind of a nutcase.? After all, extinction is impossible; humanity is unstoppable.

I was going to call this post, “California Dreamin'” becae what finally broke through my “not writing on Unspun?” barrier has to do with California’s pension “crisis,” which is really jt one more aspect of California’s generalized budgetary crisis.

But given what’s going on around the rest of the country, “Meltdown” seemed the more appropriate choice.

And while this post does mention fossil fuels, you’ll be happy to know the “meltdown” has nothing to do with global warming and the disappearance of snow and ice at Earth’s poles.

On the other hand, maybe you won’t be.? When it comes down to it, there’s no reason to be happy about Unspun? coming out of hibernation.

I’m not sure why I’ve called this post Tikkun Olam, since many of the references in it are actually to the Christian Bible. Perhaps it’s becae although the references are taken from the Christian Bible, the concepts about which I write — particularly that of making the world a better place, of healing the world — seem to me so foreign to what I see in the Christians amongst whom I live.

Is it me, or are Americans becoming increasingly stupider as time goes by?

We’re told that banks and mortgage companies made a bunch of stupid mistakes which resulted in an economic meltdown.? So to save from the economic meltdown, we were told we have to give $700 billion to the same banks that put into this mess to start with.

Wait. A. Minute.
How can we have real liberty if we lack safety?
How is a man free to “pursue happiness” — another key phrase to our country’s Founders, if his hoe may be burned or his family killed?

Safety is a necessary condition to liberty. Not a sufficient condition, of course, but necessary. And we cannot have safety without our criminal code, which means “tough on crime” and docket management. Granted, there mt always be a balance between safety and liberty, but they are not always at odds. Without safety, there can be no liberty. Without safety, any liberty we might have is an empty notion of what might have been.

There are a number of issues one might take with this.? For that reason, I decided to blog my response, rather than leave what would only be an overlong comment.